The Enchanter's Theorem

Originally published at Curse & Quanta. Please leave any comments there.

Today is my father’s birthday. I spoke to Margie Mom last night and she reminded me of the day that she and my father got married. It was a truly magical, eclectic affair. The bride wore pink. The groom tried to pretend he wasn’t weeping. Yes, it was the 80s. I’ll see if I can dig up a picture of me in the blue/hot pink changeable taffeta strapless thing I wore. Heh. It was *awesome*.

Aren’t they beautiful together? Gods, they were so young. I am literally the same age that my father is in this photo.

Have another gorgeous photo of the two of them and my personal favorite. I did, after all, take both photos.

I’ve probably posted it before. I don’t care.

I am missing him (and Margie Mom who is in Australia right now) very much this year. Building out the shop space and working with my hands has brought so many things up and I simultaneously ache with missing him and yet feel him very close. The ghost of his smile and his laughter caught at the edge of my sight and hearing.

He’s still with me. Just not close enough to touch.

It’s okay and it’s not okay simultaneously.

I miss you, Poppa Bear.

And here’s one image that was completely obliterated.

It’s very pretty, isn’t it? That’s mold, and water, and corrosion. All together creating a corrosive acid.

And the image that was once there is gone. Forever.

The artist side of myself can see and appreciate the beauty that remains. The human part of me mourns. This was a memory made physical. This was a moment in time I tried to capture and arrest, steal from Time’s predation, and preserve, if only for my own lifetime.

As always, Entropy gets the last laugh and reminds me that you can’t steal from Time, only borrow.

Luckily, the reminder is its own sharp beauty.

Originally published at ANGELA N. HUNT. You can comment here or there.

Before I showed work in Italy, I made it into a show in New York that was part of a film festival. My work was shown in Madison Square Garden, and my name was up on the marquee, and until that happened, I’d never had anything like that happen ever in my life. I stood in the snow for I don’t know how long until the marquee cycled and my name came up in giant freaking letters.

It was during a garbage strike too, so it wasn’t a pleasant task to stand in the blackened snow, surrounded by giant piles of black garbage bags, half buried in rotting snow.

On the corner across from the Garden and the hotel we were staying in, there was this all night diner.

So I took a picture of Miss Barrie. It was a little after one in the morning.

You can see how she felt about that. *g*

Originally published at ANGELA N. HUNT. You can comment here or there.

Nothing I can say makes this image better.

Originally published at ANGELA N. HUNT. You can comment here or there.

If you look closely, you can see the damage. It’s there in the center of one of her eyes. So far, you’ve only seen the minor damage. The substantial damage is later. Much later.

* * *

In other news, today I finished about half of the perks for the Save the Negatives campaign and a full two months earlier than I had expected, considering the size of the project. My focus on process and streamlining of workflow has really worked and I’m starting to reap the rewards of my new outlook on creative life.

Not to say that the rest of life isn’t challenging. The van needed over $1000 worth of repairs made on Tuesday and was out of commission for three days. My knee is also not recovered and is once more taped up one side and down the other.

There’s lots of other crap. But…it doesn’t matter.

I’m keeping my eyes on daily practice and daily flow. It seems like such a little thing, but making a point of sticking with the daily gratitude list and meditation every day has made enormous shifts in how well I’m able to handle these challenges. It seems silly that such little things should matter so much, but at least for me, they are.

For whatever reason, I’ll take it.

And on that note, I’m off to play with beads.

Originally published at ANGELA N. HUNT. You can comment here or there.

Sir Eric II, a photo by Angela N. Hunt on Flickr.

And here is a portrait of Sir Eric, who was just game for all sorts of crazy on this photo shoot, which is huge, considering he hadn’t met me before this day.

Gotta love adventurous people.

Originally published at ANGELA N. HUNT. You can comment here or there.

Street Corner, a photo by Angela N. Hunt on Flickr.

And here we go to Japan in 1998.

A million years ago, or so it seemed, the Ant and I traveled extensively. We did a big chunk of Europe, Hawaii, and Japan.

And then life ate both of us.

They are years that I miss and hope to get back to (the travel that is), because there is nothing quite like traveling alone or with just one assistant, a camera in hand, and an eye out for the beautiful. It’s why I so valued being sent to Florence, Italy in 2007 by all of you, and being sent out again by all of you to horse camp last year. Because by 2007, it had been almost a decade since I’d left the country.

In my book, that’s too long. There is so much World to see and so little time to see it in.

Anyway, I just loved the look of this rundown shop. So much of Japan at the time was so shiny and so slick. But even there? Decrepitude sneaks in.

Looks like an outtake from Bladerunner, doesn’t it?

Originally published at ANGELA N. HUNT. You can comment here or there.

The Mad Model works on not falling off a wall…, a photo by Angela N. Hunt on Flickr.

Two blog posts in one day! I know! I’m on a roll.

Anyway, here we are with the Mad Model as she got reoriented. What’s sadly missing is the audio of her threatening to gut me if she fell off the wall, since the drop on the other side was a good ten feet (I was standing on another wall for the shot).

Ah, good times.

Originally published at ANGELA N. HUNT. You can comment here or there.

The Fall of the House of Usher, a photo by Angela N. Hunt on Flickr.

So the mausoleum behind the Mad Model here is in a turn of the century (that’s 19th to 20th century) graveyard in Piedmont, CA. Most of San Francisco’s famous dead were buried there, since the City itself had no room for the Dead. If you die in SF to this day, you don’t get buried there. Closest is Colma, directly to the south on the Peninsula, where there also happens to be a large military cemetery. If Colma is the City of the Dead, Piedmont’s little piece is the Bel Air of the Dead (i.e. high-end rent).

No one gets buried there anymore. It’s starting to fall apart and is decrepit and yet, it’s one of the few places I’ve been where I’ve been struck by the absolute peace and beauty of mortuary art.

We don’t do that anymore. It’s all flat stones in the ground or plain marble markers. The occasional repetitive motif on a marble wall plaque for those interred or memorialized of either hearts or flowers or crosses or stars.

We make no peace with Death or the Dead.

It’s not a good thing.

After all, She’s always waiting.

Anyway, not that this has that much to do with the Poe story, but when I looked at it, that’s what it wanted to be called. It’s pretty noisy (that’s a technical term) and I’m probably going to tweak it more to see if I can get more noise reduction, but in the meantime, it works.

Originally published at ANGELA N. HUNT. You can comment here or there.

This is an example of a planned photograph acquiring an accident that made it perfect.

The Mouse was not supposed to be part of this shoot. But she wanted to come. And unintentionally became Alice for this portion of the Alice Assassin shoot. In none of the images that you see in this series is she posed. She’s just being herself and doing her thing, unaware that I was taking shots as she did. Only the Mad Model and the Dynamic D are, and largely in response to her actions.

It was quite a magical experience.

* * *

I’m having a shit writing day.

But whatever. It doesn’t matter.

It’s also being a very interesting training cycle so far for this marathon. I’m doing a different training program and it is kicking my ass. In a good way. I think. I also have an elliptical now (a group birthday gift) and it’s kicking my ass too. Things are really hard right now. But what’s interesting is that for all the hard?

It’s still great.

I ran at sundown on Friday. It’s not the same as running at night. But there is something about racing the sun to get home before the light fails from the sky.

Moments like that are why I run.

Now, I need to get back to my wordcount. Y’all be good out there.

Originally published at ANGELA N. HUNT. You can comment here or there.